Miami Dolphins cut Roth for lack of production

Life is tough on the Dolphins roster when you're not producing. Matt Roth was not producing since returning to active duty four games ago. So he's no longer on the roster.

The Dolphins released the outside linebacker today.

Despite the curious timing of the move, sources are telling The Herald not to look into fanciful reasons for the move other than Roth wasn't getting it done. Roth has only four tackles in four games and has not had a game in which he had more than one tackle.

Some members of the personnel department and coaching staff shared the opinion that Roth was no longer the same player he showed himself to be at times last season when he started 14 games and was fifth on the team with 53 tackles.

Asked if Roth's groin injury was the reason for his decline, a source said, "That's as good a guess as any."

The source also said Roth was a serviceable but not outstanding player even when healthy so his decline plus an early season episode in which he lied to coach Tony Sparano sealed his fate. The team obviously had no intention of re-signing Roth for next year. Roth is scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent next season.

Roth missed the first six games of the season while on the non-football injury list. He failed his conditioning test the first day of training camp and told Sparano he was sick. This after he had signed a waiver saying he was neither sick nor injured. After failing his test, Sparano met with Roth again and the player stuck with the story about being sick.

The club sent Roth for blood work which came back negative. It wasn't until agent Drew Rosenhaus revealed Roth had injured his groin again that Roth confessed to the injury.

The Dolphins filled Roth's roster spot with former Detroit defensive end Ikaika Alama-Francis, a 24-year-old product out of Hawaii that is in his third season. Francis has typical 3-4 defensive end size at 6-5 and 290 pounds.

The team also waived defensive back Nate Ness today and signed defensive back Evan Oglesby, a former Cowboys and Ravens player.